Happy Midsummer Eve

Tommorow is a holiday that pre-dates Chrisitanity itself; Midsummer, the celebration of the summer solstice. From Ireland to the Ukraine and Scandanavia to Greece as well as here in the New world people will celebrate this holiday with drinking(of course) and bon fires. In some countries people attempt to jump over these bon fires. Perhaps one day it will gain more popularity locally.

College students and rising levels of Depression

I stumbled across an article from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_re_us/us_college_poll_depression that depression is setting in on college students throughout the country. The article blamed the bad economy ,grades, school work, money and relationships for this escalation. According to the article at some Universities this has lead to higher suicide rates and other harmful activities.

I have to refute some of these causes because some are given with the territory. College students will always have school work and grades to deal with and a little bit of stress and concern over these will motivate students to do better. I admit it does get somewhat stressful at the end of the semester when all remaining school work and finals come due but its nothing a little time management and a divide and conquer mentality cannot handle. After you kill off the remaining assignments and finals one by one all that is left to do is wait for the results.

Relationships

I agree that trying to create or maintain relationships with significant others can be depressing/demoralizing ,but again this is nothing new and comes with the territory. I have heard numerous students and faculty admit that women on campus can be crappy, its just a fact of life. I remember after one demoralizing failure my junior year, besides gaining the ability to legally consume my favorite beverage which hails from my European heritage and access to 21 + gentlemen's clubs(which both helped considerably minimize the sting of failure) I over the next few months with the aid of movies such as Conan the Barbarian, 300, The enemy below, and the PC game Rome Total war was able to realize full blown defiance was a great way to counteract any crappiness that anyone or situation including the wonderful women on campus could muster at me. If women on campus were going to be crappy then the hell with them I will pursue women off campus.


Money

I have been working since I started college, while the off campus job is not as good as the jobs I have had on campus, it provides a means to save a little and supply oneself with the capital to finance recreational activities and hobbies. Working low wage jobs are better than not working at all. Sucking up any extra hours and possible overtime could get one a fatter paycheck.


The crappy economy

This is the only one that effects us all. Many who have graduated have not landed jobs that pertain to their majors due to our wonderful economy . I bumped into someone from high school who said everyone he knows who graduated is sitting at home doing nothing. I admit this could be somewhat depressing but instead of doing nothing one could turn misfortune into opportunity by going to graduate school, which I did anyways with the helpful advice of a Mentor at the University.

As stated earlier lower paying jobs are better than none and they could provide one with the capital to engage in recreational activities and hobbies. Between going to graduate school, working, and partaking in recreational activities and hobbies(all avenues in themselves to shout one's defiance at the bad economy and any other problems) , one could easily keep their mind off the rigors of the economy and other problems. There is no need to get depressed, just get defiant!

Dinosaurs and Birds

Last night on the Science channel there was a segment on Genetics and Dinosaurs. There have been fossils discovered that when broken, contain soft tissue that is well preserved as well as on a cellular level. Researchers are now trying to extract DNA from these soft tissues to map out the Gnome of these extinct organisms.

The next half of the segment went into detail on how similar birds are to Orthopods (predatory dinosaurs such as raptors). What is really surprising is the Genes of that of birds are strikingly similar to that of dinosaurs and it has been discovered that birds genes turn off their dinosaur traits as the embryos develop. One set of researchers discovered that chicken embryos contain 8 to 13 vertebrae in the tail bone but as the embryo develops it shrinks to a few. Knowing this , some researchers have modified the genes of some chicken eggs early in development via adding proteins and certain viruses to prevent the embryos genes from shortening its initially long tail bone. Because of these modifications the embryos grew with a longer tail. Researchers in different areas of the country have done the similar experiments with other features of birds during develop such as finding the genes that remove the teeth that embryos initially have and modifying those genes, genes that give birds feathers instead of scales, and the genes that give birds wings instead of arms. This reverse engineering of bird genes will eventually give rise to protodinosaurs. As Jack Horner pointed out an Emu is already the size of raptor , these genetic modifications could help it turn into one.


I think this is really cool, genetic engineering like this with the continued advancement of genetic technologies could give researchers the ability to produce other extinct animals by reverse engineering the genes of animals that are related to the extinct creatures. Imagine the possibilities.

Ed Deming's The New Economics

During my spring break, I read Edward Deming's book, The New Economics, which contained numerous innovations for Government , Industry, and Education. Edward Deming was a quality specialist, who is known for his revolutionary quality innovations that were embraced by Japan after WW2. The U.S. disregarded his teachings until the 1980s when industry in the country faced quality issues.

There were several concepts that I found interesting. Deming suggested that all companies/organizations view all of their departments and processes as components of a system
He stressed the importance of component is to help the entire system, so it is acceptable for certain components to be operating at a loss if it helps the overall system accomplish its aim. This was of particular interest because most organizations view their IT departments as cost centers but should view IT as a component that is essential for the organization to meet its aims.

Deming stressed the importance of cooperation vs competition including internally within an organization as well as companies within the same industry. From cooperation comes standardization.


Deming stressed the importance of theory, which is the base for knowledge. Theory allows for revision and prediction and allows one to use knowledge to make sense of information that is received.




Deming, E.(1994). The New Economics For Industry, Government, Education. MIT press.

Cambridge.

Change, but at what cost?

Today I found one of the Social Justice Club's literature sheets, normally I toss out their sheets because they are usually tainted with communistic ideology. However, what came to interest was that they were criticizing some of the statements that were made by Obama. According to their literature sheet, he has stated that he wants to send tens of thousands more troops to Afghanistan and initiate mandatory national service. While we could use more troops in Afghanistan, starting a draft is not the way to do it, and this also begs the question of who will be drafted, males or both males and females? After Obama won the election, the Russians began deploying short range missiles next to our Czech and Polish NATO allies. I just wonder how he will address this problem, because the Russians are not intimidated by him? Universal healthcare is expensive and taxing citizens that make over 200K a year would not be enough to cover this venture, I just wonder how much more my taxes will go up? I also hope that these changes that he speaks of do not furthur impede on our constitutional rights. What good is change if it strips you of your rights? We will have to wait and see.

Media: Does it shape or reflect reality?

Last semester when I was completing my minor in communications, two of my communication classes brought up an interesting topic ; does the media shape or reflect reality. At first, I thought it was a what came first chicken or the egg situation where it was nearly impossible to say it could happen one way or the other. However, as I watch the news coverage of the presidential campaigns, I have have realized that the media has lost its objectivity and instead of reflecting what happens in the campaigns and the debates, they openly try to shape reality to make their favorite candidate seem favorable despite what anyone else or his records have to say. Even worse, some networks such as MSNBC have reached the point where they are dealing in absolutes; if you are not for our candidate then you must be a racist. Choosing candidates by these emotional appeals is no way to choose candidates.

Fiscal responsibility

Since the housing issue has made its way to the debates, I thought that the is topic would be worth discussing. People are demanding that the government bail them out of their housing loans because they cannot make their payments. My question is why? Obviously these people bought houses that they had no business buying in the first place and now they want my tax dollars to cover their greedy ambitions. People need to learn fiscal responsibility and buy housing they could actually afford and take out reasonable loans. I agree that the prices of housing is ridiculous (we have the dual income family to thank for that), but people must realize that most of us are not destined to live in million houses, its just a fact of life. I once heard a story about a couple who made 90k a year between the two of them and they complained they could not buy a million dollar home. Talk about a news flash! What is really bugging me is that certain candidates are promising people to not only reduce the interest rates on their monthly payments, but to somehow lower the principal as well. Yes, lets encourage people to buy housing that is beyond an amount they afford, no wonder we are in this predicament! This is one of the most backwards government proposals I have ever heard. Lets reward the irresponsible and screw over the responsible by making the responsible pay for their mistakes. They made their beds, now they should deal with it. I have no allusions of grandeur , when I am ready to get my own place, I will probably not have the luxury of having a dual income , so I will buy a used home in the 200k price range. It would be good enough as a stater home, would not take as long to pay off, and would be affordable(one must also save for retirement and other miscellaneous expenses).